led, the miners retraced their steps and
went to their several homes.

Entering his cottage, the smith found his little girl Grace busily
engaged in the interesting process of nursing the baby. He seated
himself in a chair by the fireside, smoked his pipe, and watched the
process, while his wife busied herself in preparing the evening meal.

Oh! but the little Maggot was a big baby--a worthy representative of his
father--a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous,
and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little
nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than
the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of
it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him
were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers to throw each other
by main force, and her intense desire to make baby Maggot "be good" was
repaid by severe kicks on the shins, and sundry dabs in the face with,
luckily, a soft, fat pair of fists.

"Sit 'ee quiet, now, or I'll scat oo nose," said the little nurse
suddenly, with a terrible frown.

It need scarcely be said that she had not the remotest; intention of
carrying out this dreadful threat to smash the little Maggot's nose.
She accompanied it, however, with a twist that suddenly placed the
urchin in a sitting posture, much to his own surprise, for he opened his
eyes very wide, drew his breath sharply, and appeared to meditate a
roar. He thought better of it, however, and relapsed into goodness just
as the door opened, and David Trevarrow entered.

"Oh, uncle David," cried little Grace, jumping up and running towards
him, "do help me nuss baby."

"What's the matter with the cheeld--bad, eh? Fetch un to me and I'll
cure him."

There was no necessity to fetch baby, for that obstreperous individual
entertained an immense regard for "Unkil Day," and was already on his
fat legs staggering across the floor to him with outstretched arms.
Thereafter he only required a pair of wings to make him a complete
cherub.

Little Grace, relieved of her charge, at once set to work to assist her
mother in household matters. She was one of those dear little earnest
creatures who of their own accord act in a motherly and wifely way from
their early years. To look at little Grace's serious thoroughgoing
face, when she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what
was to be done next, one might ima